


the prayer of going nowhere

by badskeletonpuns



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Unsettling, jon is still Mostly human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 19:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16047476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskeletonpuns/pseuds/badskeletonpuns
Summary: A quiet, gentle moment between Martin and Jon, sometime before everything went downhill quite so much. Sometimes even vaguely-inhuman Archivists just need a hug, you know? They're all doing their best, but still. No one can fix everything.





	the prayer of going nowhere

“It’s going to be okay,” Jon says, and the words sit in his mouth like stones. He’s lying and he knows it, but how can he not say them? In the face of Martin’s sad eyes and the way his hands shake just enough to make the surface of the coffee and tea he’s carrying ripple…

Jon has to say something.

He is completely out of things to say.

At a loss, Jon takes the two mugs from Martin’s hands and sets them on a nearby cabinet. “Don’t worry about that,” he says. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about than drinks,” he attempts to joke, laughing a little awkwardly. If possible, Martin seems to fold in on himself even further without something in his hands, shoulders slumping and eyes dropping to the ground.

Jon can’t give him the drinks back. That would be ridiculous. He kind of wants to anyway. There is silence between the two men, huge and vast as one of the entities from the statements. The thought of an entity, of _any_ entity, is banished to the back of Jon’s mind as fast as it appears. Logically, it cannot be that easy to summon most of them. 

It still isn’t safe to take that chance.

“Jon, I just—” Martin starts, and cuts himself off. He shakes his head like a horse trying to rid itself of flies, almost more of a shiver than a shake. “Nevermind. You’ll just say—I mean, not to assume, I, um.” He trails off with a sigh. “I’ll just take the drinks back up to the kitchen. Let you get back to that statement.”

Abruptly, Jon remembers the yellow-tinged papers on his desk, the recorder whistling slightly in the background. That’s right, he had been recording a statement before Martin had poked his head in with drinks and a nervous smile. (Jon hadn’t even jumped when Martin had entered, had practically been able to see him humming his way around the kitchen and making his way down the stairs. He told himself it was just that Martin was predictable, that he had routines, and that coffee and tea were always a part of that. He told himself lots of things, these days.)

“It’s fine,” he says, as gently as he knows how. Martin is jumpier now than he’d ever been before, even after the incident with the Hive, and Jon can’t help but feel like he’s the one to blame. He risks reaching out, placing a hand on Martin’s shoulder.

The contact seems to breach something in the void between them and Martin nearly collapses forward, pulling Jon into a tight hug. Uncharacteristically, he doesn’t say a word.

Not about how odd Jon might feel in his arms, worn down to smooth skin and bone under the constant stresses of the Archives.

Not about the impending end of the world.

Not even about the drinks, cooling on a filing cabinet and perilously close to an open drawer of statements.

Jon doesn’t say anything either, until something Martin said pings in his mind. He draws back, not quite out of Martin’s arms but far enough to make eye contact. “What did you mean?” he asks, and maybe he’s too brusque because Martin shrinks away from him and won’t meet his eyes. They’re barely any further apart and already Jon is cold, colder than he should be. (He’s been cold a lot, lately. Barely notices it anymore, and that fact worries him far more than his temperature does.)

“What?” Martin gets out.

There is quiet for a moment as Jon takes a breath, in and out. He needs the air, even if it’s the slightly stale air that is emitted from the Archive’s vent system. Needs the calm, needs the pressure of Martin’s hands on his waist. “That thing you said earlier,” Jon explains. “When you cut yourself off, talking about how I’d say something? 

Martin relaxes a little, settling closer to Jon. He’s probably imagining the way it feels purposeful. After all, it isn’t like anyone, least of all bright, cheery, _human_ Martin, would want to be any closer to Jon than they had to. Martin is blushing a little, but at least he’s looking back up at Jon. “Well, you know, I was thinking about when you were gone and I was reading statements, and we didn’t get many useful ones from people, and I was thinking about how maybe it’s because you’re the Archivist? But that seemed kind of ridiculous and I know we do get lots of crazy people, and I was just remembering when I used to get seriously freaked out and you’d always point out the discrepancies in the stories and I knew you weren’t doing it to make me feel better, but I was thinking…” 

Jon doesn’t know why he does it. Leaning forward, pressing his forehead against Martin’s, it’s an idiotic spur of the moment idea that he should never have followed through on. But he does. And Martin stops rambling. He takes a deep breath in tandem with Jon.

They both close their eyes.

For a single moment, Jon is here in this study and nowhere else.

He hadn’t even realized he’d been hearing the buzz of fluorescent lights all through the hallways, smelling the curry someone was reheating in the kitchen, reading over the shoulder of someone going through evidence, a thousand tiny facts that he had no business knowing.

It all stops and the quiet is big and safe and it’s just him and Martin in this study, warm and human and real.

They breath together, the messy expansion and contraction of meat and muscle in the chest suddenly miraculous. Martin pulls Jon a little closer, and they’re hugging again. 

This is quite possibly more human contact than Jon has had in months.

He holds in that moment, those memories. Opens his eyes to sear every detail he can in his mind. The soft strength in Martin’s arms, the gentle brush of his bare arms against Jon’s, the way he smells a bit like the tea he’s always drinking. Jon doesn’t know how long any of them have left, let alone how much of that time will be as nice as this moment.

Martin has a smattering of freckles on his neck, dipping below the rumpled collar of his shirt.

Jon had never noticed that before.

The rest of the world begins to tune back into his mind, even as he draws back in an attempt to keep looking at Martin, trying to stay here and here alone as long as he can. Even as he memorizes a triptych of freckles on Martin’s forehead, there’s another assistant stubbing their toe on a chair two floors above him. Someone is on the phone with their mother, and they’re talking in German and Jon does not know German but he still knows they’re arguing over who has to pick up Oma from bingo night.

Martin’s looking at him here, he’s saying something, but Jon can’t hear him over the steady drip of a broken faucet in the women’s restroom, sounding off in time with Tim tapping his foot on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, cutting Martin off. “I’m a little tired.”

Martin just looks at him. Crows’ feet wrinkle the corners of his eyes, and Jon thought they were there from the way Martin smiled all the time but he isn’t smiling now. He just looks sad, and a little lost. Jon steps further out of Martin’s arms, until his hands leave Jon’s sides altogether and he just clasps them in front of him.

Jon is reminded of a short-lived stint volunteering at an animal shelter and watching a puppy be left in a kennel by a woman who just kept repeating, over and over, that she was so sorry and she just hadn’t realized he’d be such a handful and she just didn’t have the time and really, he’d be better off somewhere else.

Martin would be better off somewhere else. That, Jon knows for certain. And maybe he couldn’t leave right now, none of them could, but Martin was just an assistant. He still could get out someday. Jon just couldn’t let him get too close, couldn’t let him get strung up in the web of the Archives like a fly in a web.

“Of course. Tired,” Martin says. He tries for a smile, but it’s a pale imitation of the way he used to bounce around.

Jon never thought he’d miss that.

“I’ll just rewarm your coffee, then?” Martin suggests.

Jon just nods. He’s already moving back behind his desk, checking the tape recorder to see if it has turned itself off at any point. (It hasn’t. Jon hasn’t had to turn the tape recorder on in months, regardless of when he last recorded a statement.)

He doesn’t look at Martin as he leaves the room with the drinks, but he sees him leave anyway.

Jon clears his throat. Files away the memory of Martin’s hugs and smiles, the warmth and life that followed him into the room. The Archivist cannot allow himself to be distracted.

“Statement continues…”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm listening to episode 119 right now and i _know_ that once i finish it, i'm gonna need some fluff that's not entirely terrifying or sad.  
>  hmu on twitter @wendymakespuns or tumblr @wendy-comet to talk about things maybe being happy, for once? please?


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